JIM MOORE | Cougar football buffoonery continues

The fiasco that is Cougar football continued Saturday night in Pullman with a 44-36 loss to UCLA.

In an epic display of all-time buffoonery at Washington State, the Cougs had a field goal blocked and returned for a touchdown, had another field goal blocked AND had a punt blocked.

Here's the kicker ...

It all happened before the end of the first quarter!

That was after the team's best player, Marquess Wilson, quit an hour before kickoff, claiming in an open letter to Cougar Nation that coach Mike Leach verbally abuses his players.

After the game Leach emphatically denied those accusations and addressed the Wilson situation on the Cougar Radio Network by saying: "Clearly there was some addition by subtraction because we had the best effort of the season."

I went to the Dads' Weekend game and watched as thousands of fans left Martin Stadium after the Cougs suffered a safety, then kicked off and allowed a 40-yard return and a touchdown to the Bruins in two plays.

The fans who left missed Erick Kendricks' 40-yard touchdown return with a fumble a few minutes later to make it 37-7, capping the Bruins' 30-point explosion in the second quarter.

They also missed the second of the Cougars' blocked punts when Michael Bowlin couldn't field a horrible dribbler of a snap and was snuffed by the Bruins.

Fortunately there was time for only one play and, amazingly, Brett Hundley couldn't find anyone open and threw the ball out of bounds. I say "amazingly" because he went 18-for-21 on the night.

In all the years I've been watching Cougar football, I've never seen the student side as empty as it was for a second-half kickoff. There might have been 1,000 fans in the stands, and that's being charitable — you could have counted them one by one and it wouldn't have taken you long to come up with the number.

I stuck around and watched as the Cougs rallied to put a mini-scare into the Bruins, getting within eight points with 1:31 to go. The onside kick attempt failed, allowing UCLA to hold on.

It was a perfect ending to a weird week. Leach came under scrutiny for publicly criticizing his players. Some fans think it's about time, the Cougs need some tough love. Others think he went too far and believe he should keep the family business behind closed doors.

Saturday night's developments did nothing to settle anything. The Leach supporters said good riddance to Wilson, thinking he's a coddled, entitled kid who needed to ship out since he didn't shape up.

The Leach supporters also got a huge rise out of that big second-half comeback, loving the fact that the Cougs "didn't quit" and kept fighting 'til the end.

The Leach detractors think there might be something to Wilson's claims and that someone should check them out — it's unusual for star players to up and quit like that.

I have heard from two other parents of players who cited the same kind of "humiliating" treatment of their sons in the locker room.

Maybe this kind of thing is typical when there's a coaching change, I don't know. But if I were athletic director Bill Moos, I'd look into the allegations and not just brush them off as disgruntled players who haven't bought into the culture change.

I'm also past the point of describing a belated Cougar comeback as "admirable" or "heartening" or whatever adjective you want to use. They were such a joke in the first half that you can't dismiss those 30 minutes like they didn't happen.

Their gritty little rally occurred in a full second half of garbage time. Plus the Bruins, regardless of what coach Jim Mora told them at halftime, had to be in coast mode, knowing they'd pretty much won the game already.

Besides being outplayed, I'd argue that the Cougars were outcoached. When you have four kicks blocked, there must be systematic breakdowns involved. I also could not believe all of the penalty flags on the field when the Cougs were called for two unsportsmanlike penalties following UCLA's last touchdown.

Besides the empty student section, here's another first — I've never seen a kicker kick off from the opponent's 35-yard line before, but that's what happened after officials walked off the two unsportsmanlike penalties.

Honestly, I don't know what to make of the Cougar football program anymore. I'm equal parts skeptical and hopeful.

Washington State is now 11-49 in its last 60 games, a stretch covering nearly five seasons. This year the Cougs are 2-8 after losing seven in a row.

The question I heard from a Coug fan Sunday morning at The Daily Grind in Pullman is the same one I have: